Heretofore, the standard practice for automotive hood assemblies has been to construct the hood of sheet metal, stamped to whatever contours are required of the automotive design, and to reinforce the hood in various ways to assure its maintaining its contour and, essentially, its non-flexibility. The means of reinforcing include reinforcement beams on the underside of the hood extending from opposite corners, as well as turning down the side edges of the hood to provide a reinforcing flange extending from one end of the hood to the other. The hood is made flush with the vehicle by setting the height of the hood hinges at one end and the height of conventional hood bumpers at the other end such that both ends are flush with the adjoining vehicle panels. Since the hood is fairly rigid, its predetermined stamped contour, reinforced as described, will reasonably assure that the hood will be maintained flush with the fender line of the vehicle and will not be damaged or permanently set in some out of flush condition by some externally applied load, e.g., automatic car washing rolls, or someone just sitting on it. More recently, the automotive industry has turned to using plastic fabricated external body panels and other parts wherever possible because of decreased weight, increased durability, and a host of other reasons. This has included a turn to using plastic engine compartment hoods, and these hoods are more flexible than the prior metal hoods for a variety of engineering design reasons, including the desirability of eliminating the more conventional hood reinforcement techniques.